A Cricket in My Heart: An Autobiography

Eddie Doherty tells the story of his later years It's the tale of a world-famous reporter, a star-crossed romance with a Russian Baroness, and the foundation of the Madonna House Apostolate.

Eddie Doherty, Taking the Second Fork in His Life’s Road: A Spiritual Journey

In 1940, Liberty Magazine gave Eddie Doherty — billed “America’s Star Reporter” — what was probably his last assignment for them. He was a do a piece about Harlem, which was a slum in New York’s Manhattan. That is when he stumbled across a lay Catholic action organization, Friendship House, headed by the Russian “Baroness” Catherine de Hueck.

Eddie fell in love. Thus began his travel along the second fork in his road of life—the adventure chronicled in A Cricket in My Heart.

This is the story of a star-crossed romance, when Eddie agrees to adopt holy poverty as a condition for marrying Catherine, his beloved “Katie.”

It is the story of their love for one another bearing fruit in the humble beginnings of a little apostolate named Madonna House—destined to one day spread around the world.

But most of all, it is the story of a man transformed by a joyous love for God into a troubadour of faith and hope for all—culminating in the final realization of his boyhood dream: ordination as a priest in the Catholic Church.

Reviews

“My father told me that he was writing the best book of his life, which turned out to be the autobiography A Cricket in My Heart. After his death, I saw to it that it was published. Many of its brilliantly-drawn characters, like its author and his beloved Katie, are dead. Yet I believe the book will live into old age, as he did, charming younger generations with his romances, his humour, with his spirituality, and with his account of a life that danced and capered its way for more than 80 years into a sweet end as a holy priest.”